Surgical procedures often require the removal of a section of bone in order to make room for an implant. In these procedures it is often necessary to remove only a specific area of the bone without harming or damaging the remaining bone stock. Any damage to the surrounding bone can compromise or weaken the remaining bone and subsequent bone-implant interface. However, it is often difficult to visualize the precise area of the bone to be resected and bone cutting tools can be difficult to control and may kick away from the desired path unexpectedly. The use of cutting devices can result in resections that are too deep, improperly shaped, have the wrong orientation, or are in the wrong location, damaging surrounding tissue. Therefore, it is difficult to remove the proper amount and area of bone necessary for the implant.
One attempt to limit the area of bone resected in freehand operations has included a metal template. The template includes a metal rim that is placed over the section of bone to be resected, with an inner area defining the portion of bone to be removed. The surgeon must then resect within the rim. However, contact with the rim can result in unwanted debris in the implantation site. The rim may also be bent or improperly placed, leading to an improperly shaped implant site. The metal rim is also bulky and awkward to implement as the template has to be larger than the area to be resected.
Computerized systems have been developed that are capable of automatically resecting a bone. These computerized systems perform image guided surgery and rely on bone images and anatomical landmarks. The computerized systems are expensive, and can still result in improperly shaped resections, particularly resections that are too deep.